Mouth Cancer and You

It"s estimated that up to 60,000 people in the UK will be diagnosed with mouth cancer over the next ten years. Of these, 30,000 will die as a direct result of having the disease. In November each year, dentists get together with other health professionals and raise awareness of this catastrophic disease.

Mouth Cancer Screening As Part of Our Every Day Practise

At York Place Dental, we've included a mouth cancer screening in all dental examinations for well over 15 years, and many other dentists are doing this too. Quite literally, it could save your life. Check out this recent article for the reasons why there has been such a sharp increase in mouth cancer recently.....

Cases of mouth cancer in the UK have increased by more than 1,000 in just a year, according to statistics released by the British Dental Health Foundation.

The figures show that since 2000 cases of mouth cancer have increased by 50%, with almost double the number of men developing the disease compared to women.

Almost 2,500 people died from mouth cancer in 2011, and there were more than 6,000 new cases in England alone.

Dr Nigel Carter OBE, chief executive of the British Dental Health Foundation, said he was worried by the new figures.

He said: “There is a clear gap in public knowledge about what causes mouth cancer that needs to be plugged. Smoking and drinking to excess increase your chances of getting mouth cancer by 30 times as much, yet so many social smokers often light up while having a drink. "Of greater concern is the rise of the human papillomavirus. It is forecast to overtake smoking as the leading cause of the disease in the next ten years. Poor diet has been linked to half of cases in the UK.

“All of these factors make early diagnosis so important. If it is caught early, your chances of surviving mouth cancer are 90%. If it is caught late, which unfortunately many cases are, then you have a 50/50 chance of living.”